© 2016 Faculty of Humanities, University of Indonesia
Aone van Engelenhoven is assistant professor in Southeast Asian Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) and the School of Asian Studies at the Leiden Institute of Area Studies (LIAS), both at Leiden University, the Netherlands. His main research interests are descriptive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and oral tradition in East Indonesia, East Timor, and the Malukan community in the Netherlands. His most recent publications are “Kasi and bikin; Two causative strategies in Melayu Tenggara Jauh (Southwest Maluku, Indonesia)”, Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia 16/1 (2015): 80-104 and (with Maaike van Naerssen) “Southeastern Asia; Diglossia and politeness in a multilingual context”, in: D. Smakman and P. Heinrich (eds), Globalising sociolinguistics; Challenging and expanding theory, pp. 66-79. London: Routledge (2015). Aone van Engelenhoven may be contacted at: a.van.engelenhoven@hum.leidenuniv.nl.
Nazarudin is a lecturer at the Linguistics Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia. He took his Master degree in Linguistics at Inha University, Incheon, South Korea 2010. He is currently doing his PhD in Linguistics at Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) in the research project “Language contact on Kisar Island, Southwest Maluku, Indonesia; The case of Woirata” under the supervision of Prof. Maarten Mous and Dr. Aone van Engelenhoven. From 2012–2014 he participated in a research project by Pusat Penelitian Kebudayaan dan Kemasyarakatan Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (P2KK LIPI) on endangered Non-Austronesian languages. His main research interests are descriptive linguistics, language documentation, linguistic anthropology, and corpus linguistics. His recent publication is “Causative constructions in Woirata, Kisar Island (Southwest Maluku, Indonesia)”, Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia 16/1 (2015): 27-41. Nazarudin may be contacted at: n.nazarudin@hum.leidenuniv.nl.
Aone van Engelenhoven and Nazarudin | DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v17i2.440
A tale of narrative annexation
Stories from Kisar Island (Southwest Maluku, Indonesia)
Aone van Engelenhoven and Nazarudin
Abstract1
This paper discusses strategies of appropriation of narrative heritage in literate and narrative histories on the island of Kisar. It shows that notwithstanding their sometimes literate characteristics, storytelling in competitive contexts still follows strategies that are typical for oral performances. This paper questions in how far literate and narrative historiographies can and ought to be separated from each other in Southwest Maluku.
1 This paper has been written in the framework of the project The Orphans of the Dutch
East Indies Company, funded by The Dutch Culture Centre for International Cooperation. We like to thank Gerlov van Engelenhoven, Charles Katipana, and Geert Snoeijer for the
much needed discussions and reflections. Of course, we are the only ones to blame for any
Keywords
Meher; Woirata; narrative topology; names; songs; narrative artifacts; chronotopes; orality–literacy paradox.
Introduction: literate, oral, and narrative histories
If history is an account of what happened in the past, then historiography must
be the methodology of accounting for the past. The term historiography from
the Classical Greek istoria ‘inquiry’ and grafein ‘to write’ already imposes a literate tradition on the study of history from a Western perspective. This view, which we will refer to here as “literate history”, may be acceptable in many parts of insular Southeast Asia where literate traditions evolved, as for example on the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Sulawesi. In areas, however that lack a written tradition, as for example Southwest Maluku, historiography requires a non-written methodology.
As such, the term “oral history” seems to propose itself more or less automatically as an appropriate term to cover the oral accounts of what happened in the past. It is a generally acknowledged term for the collection
of “memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through
recorded interviews” (Ritchie 2015: 1). Oral history thus is a technique with which non-written, personal knowledge about an event in the past is captured and then is checked against the data available in written or “literate history”.
Otherwise said, oral histories are supposed to either directly confirm or
otherwise slightly adjust “literate history”. Negating “literate history“, which is tangible through its written sources, is only possible through new tangible
evidence, be it a new text or perhaps an archeological find (for example,
Middleton 2015). The Belgian Africanist Jan Vansina (1983: 199), the grand
advocate of oral tradition research for historical research, specifically warns against the equation of writing and oral traditions. The fluid characteristics of
an oral account hamper the tangible reliability that is traditionally expected of a written account in a literate society.
Notwithstanding the fact that the national education system managed to reach the outermost corners of the Republic of Indonesia, Southwest Malukan communities appear to be overall oral societies in which literacy
is confined to issues related to local government and the church. Historical
accounts are in principle transferred orally, which makes Vansina’s warning
specifically applicable to Southwest Malukan traditional historiography.
Historical accounts from this region, then, are basically orally transmitted
stories that need to be analysed in first instance as specimens of oral tradition.
Consequently, the historical value that is carried by these stories also ought to
be understood within the framework of local knowledge management first,
something different from the story itself – the narrative. In order to analyse them, Young’s (2004) narrative phenomenology is used that distinguishes between a “Tale-world” that contains the narrated location and time in which the story takes place, and a “Story-realm” that contains the actual location
and time of the narration itself. Its identification in either a “Tale-world” or a
“Story-realm” locates the story on a gliding scale from complete profaneness to extreme sacredness. In fact, Van Engelenhoven (2010a) shows that in certain contexts the “Tale-world” and “Story-realm” can coincide.
Their oral character locates the narrations on a gliding scale from fully profane to highly sacred. The degree of sacredness or profanity determines the use of voice in a performance. Extremely profane stories – for example sexually explicit gossip - and highly sacred stories – for example explanations on origin myths - are usually told in the private space in which there is only one performer and an audience of one or a few listeners. In this space, narrations are secretive and as such tend to be whispered in order to prevent that the story is overheard by outsiders. In the public space on the other hand, profane and sacred stories are performed in a clear voice in order to ascertain that it is understood by everybody. Although the topic of the performance may determine the kind of audience that will attend, its narration lacks the secrecy of a performance in private space.
Elsewhere Van Engelenhoven (2010b: 151) explains that in the case of ritual singing in Southwest Maluku there is a “principle of continuation” that
compels the performer to completely finish the text that he or she has begun
to sing. A similar principle appears to apply to storytelling performances, at least in public space. A story needs to be brought to an end, even if the performer is not capable to do that or if the audience does not like the story.
In the first case, the story can be continued by another performer. In the
second case, the audience can let the storyteller know to adapt his story, for example by knocking on the table (Van Engelenhoven 2004: 34). Due to the
principle of continuation, interruptions or even terminations of unfinished
stories are highly unwanted and usually prevented by all means.2 This creates
the typical feature of Southwest Malukan societies where sacred stories can
be disguised as profane ones as long as the story is told.3 In the case that
is discussed in this paper, however, there is no need to focus on narration management per se, because our data are largely written sources, rather than oral performances. Rather, we will concentrate here on the construction of the stories themselves. Notwithstanding the fact that they are written, their narrative topology appears to be the same as with oral narratives.
A basic quality of oral narratives in Southwest Maluku and the District
2 The only instance Van Engelenhoven experienced a performance was obstructed was
in 2006 in Chailoro village in Tutuala subdistrict (Timor-Leste), when someone in the audience
considered the other attendees not to be qualified enough to hear the story. The performance
was held anew later that night in Tutuala village with a selected audience.
3 A generally used example consultants come up with is the narration of the birth of
of Lautém in Timor-Leste and probably in entire insular Southeast Asia is that they are concatenations of plot patterns, which Sweeney (1987) labeled “narrative chunks” in his analyses of Malay storytelling. These plot patterns are stored in the names of the people and the locations that occur in the story. This is explained in Figure 1 by the names of the protagonist in the myth of the creation of Leti Island (Van Engelenhoven 1998).
Figure 1 shows that anthroponyms epitomize narrated events of the name-bearer. The protagonist in the Leti Creation story enlarges the east side of Leti Island by wading from his boat through the sea to the island, because of
which he is known from then on as Sler-leti (Wade-Leti). Before he came to
Leti Island he stayed at the island of Luang, which he had to leave for some reason. This reason is told in another story where the main character is called
Sïeru-lüona (Leave-Luang). Before he came to Luang Island, the main character stayed on Timor. When he left this island to go on a quest he felt extremely homesick and could not stop thinking about his fatherland in Timor and the
reason why he had to leave. This is why the protagonist is called Sair-malai
(Stick-Timor) in this story. While all three stories can be told independently, the awareness that the main characters in all three stories in fact are the same person enables their linking into one chain of narrative events.
Whereas anthroponyms epitomize heroic actions of the name-bearers, toponyms may also be epithets that describe a function of a location at a certain
time. This is exemplified in Box 1 by the Meher name of Kisar Island, Yotowawa.
1 Yotowawa ‘highland’ (Riedel 1886: 33)
2 Yotowawa ‘remote rocky island’ (Malagina 2008)
3 Yoto ‘Yoto domain’ + wawan ‘on’ ‘On Yoto’ (Van Engelenhoven 2008: 319) 4 Yoto ‘Yoto domain’ + wa-wawa
‘reduplication-carry’
‘responsible domain’ (Dahaklory et al. 2010: 1)
5. Yotowa-wa ‘sheep-reduplication’ ‘many sheep’ (Mandala 2010 : 49) 6. Yotowa ‘sheep’ + (uma ‘land’) ‘sheep island’ (Pattipeilohy 2013: 10)
The explanations in Box 1 show that toponyms behave like epithets that either describe the location itself, or – in case of number 4 – the function of the location in question. The difference between the interpretability of the anthroponyms in Figure 1 and the toponyms in Box 1 is due to the fact that the anthroponyms are obviously recognized as multimorphemic constructions whose combined meanings narrate the event executed by the referent of the name. The different interpretations of Yotowawa, although it factually just refers to the island of Kisar, is caused in numbers 3 through 5 by the awareness of its multimorphemic, hence multisemantic composition. Numbers 1 and 2 obviously are interpreted
as single morphemes whose meanings come from external sources,4 although
specifically the broad explanation in Malagina (2008) suggests that her source
at least was aware of the morphemic complexity of the name. Numbers 3 and 4 show that the interpreters consider part of the name to be a corruption of
an independent morpheme, respectively the postposition wawan ‘on’ and a
reduplication of the verb wawa ‘to carry’, meaning ‘responsible’. Both recognize
the segment Yoto as the name that refers to the domain of Yoto. Numbers 5 and
6 are different, in that they actually are interpretations of a Meher name in the Woirata language (see the section on linguistic apartheid). The island of Kisar
is indeed referred to as Yotowa in the languages of Woirata and Fataluku that
are spoken on Kisar and in the Lautém District (Timor-Leste), respectively. In the Woirata myth in De Josselin de Jong (1937) sheep already were described as
hihi Yotowa ‘Kisarese goats’. The consultants of Mandala (2010) and Pattipeilohy (2013) translated the word Yotowa itself as ‘sheep’, because of which Mandala’s consultant had to interpret Yotowawa as a reduplication of Yotowa that denotes
diversification: ‘many sheep’. Pattipeilohy’s consultant suggests the name
to be a corruption of ‘sheep’ and ‘land’. Box 1 shows that names in fact are landmarks with which the audience can locate the story in narrative time (Van Engelenhoven 2010a: 62).
Another feature in narrative topology are songs, or in our case, poems.
Songs confirm the story’s trustworthiness within the “Story-realm”. Otherwise
4 The consistent appearance of the <h> grapheme before <k> in his Kisarese language
material suggests that in Riedel (1886) the information source was a speaker from the Karanna dialect of the Meher language (Samloy et al. 1998: 11).
formulated, songs provide clues with which the audience can assess the truth value of the narration. If the performer provides the correct song that goes with the tale, the audience may consider the narration as trustworthy. Just as the clichés discussed in the names in Box 1, songs can be very obscure, due to the fact that the text is no longer understood. This has been observed several times by De Josselin de Jong (1937) during the translation of the Woirata myth that he recorded.
We understand that these songs were composed in what Van Engelenhoven (2010b) labels “Sung Language”, a special register shared by all Austronesian languages in the region. This register features a lexicon of about 150 words whose homonymic character and simplified grammar enable the
multi-interpretability of the texts. This is exemplified by a “Sung Language” text
from Letwurung (Babar Island).
Original song text Toolbox translation Performer’s translation
Rto reryo upa ul lire ‘They watch the ancestor’s language
‘Remember the ancestor’s order
Ke reryo ame ul kote They see the forefather’s word
Beg for the elders’ advice
Am mesa no yeri waityor Alone we kneel at the side That we not sink in the ocean
Upo Rayo rweweke mutir The Lord King discusses what you decide.’
And the Lord may bless us.’
The left side translation was created by means of Toolbox, a computer program devised by the Summer Institute of Linguistics to gloss and analyse texts with. The right side translation was provided by the performer to Mariana Lewier.
A comparison reveals that where the Toolbox program translates Am mesa no
yeri waityor (1pl.ex alone LOC side kneel)5 as ‘Alone we kneel at the side’, the
performer translates the whole sentence into ‘That we (may) not sink in the ocean’. Whereas this might be suggested by the way we present the text in Box 2, the performer did not give a line by line translation, but rather provided an interpretation for the text as a whole. The fact that the performer was not capable to segment the text into lines or to parse it, suggests that the text is seen as a whole unit. This connects to the interpretation of Dahoklory et al.
(2010) who translate the toponym Yotowawa as ‘responsible domain’. Their
actual explanation is much more elaborate: “the domain that neither wants to
embarrass nor wants to be embarrassed” (Dahoklory et al. 2010: 1). In here, Yoto
is indeed recognized as the toponym of a domain and wawa as a corruption
of wa-wawa (RED-carry)6 ‘to carry (a burden)’, the burden being the domain’s
responsibility, probably for the welfare of the entire island.
5 pl = plural marker, LOC = locative marker. 6 RED = reduplication.
Narrative artifacts are a third instrument in narrative topology. Narrative
artifacts are devices or objects that play a significant role in the story, or in
other words: they are theatrical properties or “props”. Some narrative artifacts have names, because of which they have a double function in the narrative topology: they are a prop within one story, but at the same time their name
locates the event it profiles in narrative time. This is exemplified by the golden
keris Risanpuna that is one of the paraphernalia of the king of Kisar Island. Box 3 is a comparative frame with at the left side quotes from the story by H.N. Christiaan (2011) from the Mauko’o clan and at the right side quotes from Sahusilawane (2008) that – supposedly – were provided by a member of the Hihileli clan or one of its allies. In order to enable the equation of the narrative events in either text, the quotes have been displayed opposite to each other.
Three printed dots (…) indicate that part of the text has been removed. Two
printed arrows (à) in a sentence indicate that there is a narrative sequence
missing that is present in the oppositely printed text. See further Box 3.
78
Christiaan (2011) Sahusilawane (2008: 35-39)
‘The unfolding story tells that people from the Nakar Dau clan in Enitutun, named Perulu (and) Paununu, robbed East Timorese noblemen who were on that beach (Walu, AvE&N) and ran off to Kisar with their valuables, as for example gold, silver etcetera. … It is mentioned in the Kisarese Chalk Lines7
that sounds as such:
Perulu //Paununu, nawalei // nalyara la Noho Mehi // la Yalu Here holikukunala // pakromnala ke’en paloi // wain penere8
which means: “Perulu (and) Paununu during their travel to Yalu Beach (= Walu Beach, AVE&N), found valuable things piled along the beach.“
… Among the valuable things that
disappeared was a keris with a golden head, named Risampuna à
‘One day five men from Kisar, the brothers
Pakar, Norimarna and Pooroe and two people from Abusur village, Perulu and Paununu from the clan house of Enitutun or Nakar Dau, sailed to Portuguese Timor. …
When they arrived on Yalu Beach (= Walu Beach, AvE&N) they met a Portuguese named Risanpuna. The Portuguese was supposed to have valuable things and one of these things was a keris of which the hilt and sheath were made of gold. Both Abusur men wanted to have the keris, because of which they had to kill Risanpuna and took the keris; the event
made the five men from Kisar directly return
to Kisar. …
The outcome of the meeting (between the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Kisarese, AVE&N) was that Pakar had to deliver a golden piece from his clan house Hihileli Halono … to compensate the golden keris that was stolen …
7 The Kisarese Chalk Lines, alternatively referred to in this paper as Chalk Line Poems,
are a collection of poems in Meher that epitomize historical events and explain the reign of the royal house of Hihileli. In Christiaan’s (2011) account the Meher term hini'ir ler-ne (‘chalk box line-POS’) is erroneously written as hiri’in lerne; Yotowawa Daisuli (2013) refers to it as Hini’in Larni, whereas Sahusilawane (2008:41) refers to it as either “Hiriam or Lerne”.
8 Toolbox inspired translation: ‘When Perulu // Paunulu cruised // sailed to Jaco
à and now it is kept among the treasury of the king of Halono in Wonreli.‘
When the Portuguese had left Kisar, the golden keris appeared to have been stolen by two people from Abusur who offered it to Pakar as a compensation for the big golden piece that was given to the Portuguese. Since then the keris of Risanpuna has been kept in the Hihileli Halono clan house … and became one of the symbols of government by the kings of Kisar.‘
The importance of the golden keris, is that it functions as a narrative artifact with which the story of the war with the Portuguese can be told, which in the end was responsible for the arrival of the Dutch on Kisar Island. The name
Risanpuna is obscure in itself: both stories in Box 3 reflect the perception of the
community that speaks Meher. The name, however, is Fataluku rather than Meher, which is probably why both authors interpret it as the name of the owner, whereas for us the segment puna ‘cliff’ rather suggests it is a toponym. Alternatively, since its origin is supposed to be on Jawa Island (Christiaan 2011), the name can also be a Fataluku or Meher corruption of a Javanese name.
Due to its intensive contact with the colonial government during the period when Indonesia was still a Dutch colony, Kisar Island is an interesting case in which a Netherlands-oriented “literate historiography“ clashes with a traditional oral historiography. The next section provides a bird’s eye ethnographic view of the island. The following section contains a case study of local historiography on the arrival of the Dutch on Kisar Island. This is followed by a comparison between the narrative topological issues of the respective literate and narrative histories and a discussion of the phenomenon of narrative annexation within narrative rivalry. The following section discusses the orality–literacy paradox on Kisar Island: notwithstanding the introduction of literate history, Kisar’s society still prefers traditional narrative history, albeit that it no longer needs to be transmitted orally. In the conclusion we suggest that literate and narrative historiographic traditions may be mutually supportive or explanatory rather than one tradition being superior to the other.
Kisar Island: linguistic apartheid and narrative experiences
Kisar (see Map 1) is a small island of about 83 square kilometers in the regency of Southwest Maluku in the Indonesian province of Maluku. To the South it borders on the Republic of Timor-Leste. Kisar distinguishes itself from the surrounding islands both physically and ethnologically.
The island itself looks like a mountain ring in which there are smaller hills on which the people live. It has two main ports at the Western and Eastern side that are linked to the interior by means of a natural clough in the mountain ring.
9
The population is sharply divided into two ethnolinguistic groups that mainly
share the same cultural framework.10 The majority of the islanders identify
themselves as Meher11. Their language distinguishes two main dialects, Ra’i
(‘North’) that is spoken in the north part of the island and Karanna
(‘South-East’) that is spoken in the central and southwest parts of the island (Samloy et al. 1998: 11). It belongs to the Kisaric branch of the Kisaric-Luangic subgroup within the Timoric super group that is part of the putative Central Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family (Van Engelenhoven 2009). Consequently, Meher shares much of its linguistic typology and oral traditions with most languages found on the surrounding islands.
A minority of the islanders refer to themselves as Woirata (Nazarudin
2015). Local custom has it that this endonym derives from the exclamation
woi ‘hey’ and ratu ‘human being’ and as such refers to the moment when the
first newcomers met the original inhabitants of their territory and greeted each
other. We suggest that this name in fact is a local adjustment of the Meher exonym Oirata ‘brakish water’, of which De Josselin de Jong (1937)12 recorded:
9 Originally from http://www.mauteri.org/de-eilanden/kisar/.
10 Pattipeilohy (2013) observed a few characteristics in planting and house building that
are unique for the Woirata.
11 This word derived either directly from the Dutch word meester ‘master’, or indirectly
through its derivative in Ambonese Malay mester.
12 Quotations from De Josselin de Jong’s text follow the latest Woirata orthography
(Nazarudin 2014) and are based on Faust’s (2006) Toolbox analysis.
660. To ini umayauwele ina’a timur mudini to ma’u; aputu ini uma sere mara, ira te mahune na.
660. ’So, let us leave this land in the East and come together to the coast, for the water is bad.
661. Ina’a watdu ti na’a Wilaumali – Reilaumali tono Timur Warat me Oiriata deru.
661. From that day on Wilaumali and Reilaumali called East (= East Oirata, AvE&N) and West (= West Oirata, AvE&N) Oir-iata (water-bad).
662. Ina’a Yotowa apranin yo …Timur Warat me Oiriaka deru na.
662. Also near Yotowawa … they called and West Oiriaka13.’
13
The Woirata language is a nonAustronesian or Papuan language that belongs to the East Timor subgroup of the Timor-Alor-Pantar family that is supposedly connected to the Trans New Guinea Phylum (Schapper et al. 2012). Although it rather shares its typology with the closely related Fataluku language in Lautém District in Timor-Leste, from an areal linguistics point of view the language is part of the same Sprachbund as Meher (Nazarudin 2015). This applies too to its oral genres that are comparable to the ones found in Meher and on the surrounding islands.
Families in both ethnolinguistic communities are grouped into clans that again are categorized into 4 origin groups. The clans whose ancestors came forth from the soil are generally acknowledged as the traditional land owners within the own ethnolinguistic group, but usually not in the other ethnolinguistic group. Other clans originate either from Timor Island, the Kei Islands (Southeast Maluku), or Luang Island in the centre of the Southwest Maluku Regency. Each clan contains one or more clan houses that represent the existing lineages within that clan. In Kisarese folklore a clan is usually referred to with the name of its most important clan house. In the Meher-speaking territory, clans are grouped into domains that are governed by a chief clan (marna) who is assisted by allied noble clans (wuhru). The remaining
clans are the commoners (anan) and form the bulk of the community.14 This
system equals more or less what is known of other Austronesian-speaking communities on surrounding islands. As in many other Southwest Malukan
communities, some commoner clans originate from slaves (aka) that were
either captured during tribal wars or bought. Overall, the Meher-speaking population acknowledges Hihileli in Wonreli as the clan that provides the paramount chief over all Meher-speaking domains. This is probably why the colonial government in 1665 installed the then paramount chief Pakar from the Hihileli clan, baptized as Cornelis Bakker, as raja ‘king’ of Kisar Island (Rodenwaldt 1928: 38-39).
An exception are the inhabitants of Kotalama who are generally referred
13 This is the Meher pronunciation of Oirata.
14 In contact with outsiders, inhabitants of Southwest Maluku use a slightly different
to as Walada ‘Dutch’ and are not grouped into clans. They are considered to be descendants of sailors on a Dutch vessel which according to local history
was shipwrecked at Kiasar beach in the sixteenth Century BC [Sic] (Wahyudi
2013). Although not specifically expressed as such, Dahoklory et al. (2010: 4)
point out that this township therefore is not a traditional domain, but rather a dependency of Wonreli.
According to Riedel (1886: 400), Kisar Island lodged 25 domains that were divided over six landschappen or counties. In the Indonesian administration the
domains were reshuffled into nine administrative units of desa or villages. This created an implicit friction between municipal and traditional administration
in that some originally independent domains became dependencies of a desa,
whereas other originally dependent domains became either independent
desa or were relocated into the territory of a different desa. For example, the independent domain of Yawuru, which Riedel (1886: 400) records as a sacred place became a dependency of Wonreli. The county of Nohowali was split up
into two separate desa, Purpura and Nomaha, whereas the domain of Dalusama
within the county of Wonreli became the independent desa Kotalama.
The Woirata-speaking clans inhabit the Southeast of Kisar Island, which
by Riedel (1886: 400) was acknowledged as one county Oirata with five
domains: Soru, West Oirata, Lekilapa, East Oirata and Ilikesi. In the Indonesian
administration these domains were reorganized into two desa East Oirata and
West Oirata whose traditional names are Manheri and Mauhara (respectively labeled East and West in the quoted text by De Josselin de Jong above). The
conflict with the Indonesian administration here is that in fact there is no
central government, but rather a council of several groups of clans (labeled
soa in local Malay, Bartels 1994: 466) that is presided by the land-owning clan
group of Hano’o.
Both ethnolinguistic communities are traditionally separated from each other through “linguistic apartheid” (Van Engelenhoven 2016). “Linguistic apartheid” separates groups based on the language they speak. In the case of Kisar Island this created two independent societies. Communication between
both is either in local Malay, labeled Melayu Tenggara Jauh ‘Far Southeast
Malay’, or in Indonesian (Nazarudin 2015). The origin of this “linguistic apartheid” seems to be recorded mainly in Woirata narrative history, as for
example in the explanation of Mr. Johosua Serain in the film Woirata Ma’aro
(minutes 3.15-5.30).15
1. Kita punya moyang itu sudah empat pupuh di pulau Kisar, baru ketemu dengan moyang-moyang yang lain. 2. Lebih khusus itu ketemu dengan moyang orang Lekloor, orang Papula, baru pulau ini dibagi dua …
‘1. There were already four ancestors of us on Kisar Island, when they met with
other ancestors. 2. To be specific, when
they met with an ancestor of Lekloor, someone from Papula, this island was divided in two …
3. (3.46) Kalau dalam bahasa Oirata bilang Wosi, Posi kan?
3. (3.46) In Woirata they say Wosi, that’s Posi, right?
4. Tapi dalam dong punya bahasa dong biking akan Posi.
4. But they make that into Posi in their language.
5. Tapi kalau Posi itu menurut bahasa Oirata itu ‘sumpah‘.
5. But Posi in Woirata means ‘oath‘.
6. Batas itu, di buat batas itu dengan pakai sumpah.
6. That boundary, he made that boundary by means of an oath.
7. Jadi bagian barat itu dikuasai oleh orang-orang Meher.
7. So, the West is controlled by the Meher.
8. Nanti bagian timur ini katong orang dari Oirata yang kuasai …
8. Then, the East, it is us from Oirata who control it …
9. (4.21) Jadi, ketika mau terjadi sumpah bahasa ini, waktu ketemu dengan moyang Wonreli ini.
9. (4.21) So, when this language oath was about to happen, then they met these ancestors from Wonreli.
10. Moyang dari Wonreli dorang datang singgah dari Timor-timur.
10. The ancestors of Wonreli came from East Timor.
11. Dorang mau datang mendarat di sini, dorang pung perahu tenggelam di depan Kiasar situ.
11. When they wanted to land here their boat sank in front of Kiasar beach over there.
12. Dong mulai ini, sepakat itu untuk aduk ilmu begitu, jadi tentukan dua batu besar.
12. When they started it, they agreed to use black magic like that, so they chose two big rocks.
13. Lalu, Wonreli kalau dia sanggup angkat dia punya, lalu banting la akan pica, berarti betul dorang yang pertama kali masuk di pulau dan dong tuan tanah.
13. Next, if Wonreli could lift his (stone) and smash it so that it would break, it
would mean they indeed were the first
to enter the island and they would be the landowners.
14. Tapi memang Oirata yang sanggup buat itu, berarti Oirata tetap tuan tanah.
14. But if it was Oirata that was able to do that, it would mean that Oirata remained the landowner.
15. Jadi, Wonreli dong angkat dong punya sampai mau tarbera-bera juga tidak bisa.
15. So, the Wonreli people lifted theirs until they got red in their faces, but did not manage to do it.
16. Baru orang Oirata angkat satu, sekali banting, dia pecah, dia pigi di tepi-tepi tumpukan itu.
16. Only then the Oirata picked up one, smashed it in one blow, it broke up to the edges of that heap overthere.
17. Akhirnya dong mengaku bahwa iya, dong yang pertama datang dan dong tuan tanah sudah.
17. Finally they admitted that, yes, they
had come first and were the landowners
alright. 18. Baru, ketong pung moyang bilang: mulai
dari hari ini dan seterusnya itu, ketong pung bahasa, bagaimanapun dong tidak akan mengerti dan dong tidak akan ngomong ketong pung bahasa.
18. Then our ancestors said: from this day on, our language, in whatever way, they will not understand it and they will not speak our language.
19. Tapi dong pung bahasa tu seluk-beluk bagaimanapun, katong akan mengerti en katong bisa sanggup untuk bicara akan.
19. But their language, how tricky it may be, we will understand it and we will be able to speak it.’
In fact, this story mixes up two separate tales. Lines 1–8 sketch the meeting
between the first Woirata ancestors and the Meher-speaking ancestors of the
Dadiara clan that is now located in Papula in North Kisar (Sahusilawane 2008: 26-27). L. Wedilen et al. (2004: 19-24) describe how both territories were demarcated by stones through the middle of the island. Lines 9–17 discuss the initial encounter between the Woirata ancestors and the Meher-speaking
ancestors of the clan of Hihileli from where eventually the Dutch assigned
a king. This is also confirmed in the myth that was recorded by De Josselin
de Jong (1937: 97-98). Here, both sides hold a magical contest of smashing stones to decide who the real owner of the island is. Consecutively the island is divided in a Woirata-speaking territory and a Meher-speaking territory, which in fact is just an implementation of the agreement that the Woirata ancestors made with the Dadiara clan ancestors, who had moved out of the island for some unknown reason (L. Wedilen et al. 2004: 19-24).
From the Woirata perspective the incapability of the Meher people to understand Woirata is explained as a curse imposed on the Meher speakers by Woirata ancestors. The fact itself - not the curse - is generally acknowledged by Meher-speakers (Dahoklory et al. 2010: 81). The Woirata myth recorded by De
on a marriage between the (Meher-speaking) ancestors of the Hihileli clan
and the Woirata ancestors: 16
381. … nana so kere // lata pa’i naha Na-Ha ye araene:, lukunu // sohono i to’one he, to waye i ira wa’aleser pai le uma aun // sere aun mara le tono kere // lata ia’uati.
‘… they (the ancestors of Wonreli, AVE&N) might have married // associated (with the Woirata-people, AVE&N), but God (Mother-Father) refused it, the speech // the language was not equal, so
finally they made their provisions and
went to some land // some beach and married // associated (and) migrated there.’
No tale is known to us that explains the phenomenon of linguistic apartheid from the Meher point of view. The community of Meher migrants in the Netherlands rather explains it as a consequence of a taboo on the use of Woirata in company of Meher people. We therefore suggest that linguistic apartheid here is rather a result of the geographical segregation of both ethnolinguistic groups. The predictable tension that arose between both groups eventually
lead to a fierce war, as witnessed by the Woirata-based text in Sahusilawane
(2008) and the Meher-based text in Dahoklory et al. (2010), respectively. Because in the comparison in Box 4 text segments that narrate the same event
are placed opposite to each other, the first part of the Meher square remains
empty. The Woirata text opposite the empty space in the Meher square narrates a preceding war. This enables to locate the narratives of both narrations in narrative time.
1718
Woirata account (Sahusilawane 2008: 33-34)
Meher account (Dahoklory et al. 2010: 75)
‘One day cattle of the Oirata tribe came into the area controlled by the Meher tribe
and finished all patatas17 or mamakili18 over there. This made the Meher people in Wonreli angry and they declared war to the Oirata tribe. The tribal war took place in a region called Lorlapai. The land around the battle place is still considered by both Oiratans and Meher to be sacred. It is said that the battle place had become a dry spot up till today and that no grass grows there. …
16 The marriage on 21 March 1956 between a man from (Meher-speaking) Mesyapi and
(Woirata-speaking) Hano’o (Oomwil 2013) shows that this interdiction does not apply to other Meher-speaking clans.
For the second war the Oirata tribe was led by the commanders Tilwaru and Saurai, while the Meher king was assisted by his ally Poroe from the domain of Lekloor, because of which the event is called Poroe// Pakar. One day there was huge battle at Horok Mountain19 and at that time the commanders of the Oirata tribe were killed by a gun with golden bullets. The sword Al Lo’or Tei that belonged to both commanders of the Oirata tribe was captured by the Meher allies and is kept by the families Katipana and Rupilu at the Mesyapi domain.’
‘East of the mountain Opwuhur (Abusur,
AvE&N), one finds Porok Mountain. This
mountain appears to have its own stories that are connected to the Sweet Potato Leaves War between the Oiratans and the people from Lekloor (Heri Ho’// Lekloro) that happened around 1863.
The fighting took place on top of Porok
Mountain. The community will tell a lot about the war that in the end was meant to maintain the unity and the (feeling of)
togetherness on Kisar by confirming that
Wonreli was the one that was honored with the duty to protect and look after the entire society of Kisar.
The House of Halono is the Barrier Thread for the Property Sign // The House of Halono is Pure Water for the Living Grass.’20
1920
Both sources pay a lot of attention to the topologies of their narratives. Both situate the battle on Horok or Porok Mountain and both acknowledge that although it was between Oirata and Lekloor, in fact it was a war between the domain of Wo’orili21 and Oirata. Interestingly, Dahoklory et al. (2010) identify
the Porok Moutain Battle with the Tuber Leaves War that the Woirata source locates earlier in time and in a different place (on Lorlapai Mountain). In
fact, the Indonesian term Perang Daun Ubi or ‘Tuber Leaves War’ does not
represent a single battle, but rather a series of battles that are triggered by the same incentive: Woirata cattle grazing on Meher territory and eating the crops there.22
The Woirata account provides the names of all the leading participants: on the Woirata side the warlords Teluaku and Sa’urai from the Ira clan
group,23 on the Meher side Pakar and Pooroe from the clans of Hihileli and
Halono, respectively. The Meher story on the other hand contains a song that
confirms the supremacy of the Halono clan and as such supports the thesis
19 Horok is the Woirata pronuntiation of Porok in Meher.
20 Rom Halono penia Nordu’uleni la’ Hewereni //Rom Halono penia Oir Mou-mou la’ Penek
Monor-noreni.
21 Referred to in Indonesian as Wonreli.
22 Rodenwaldt (1928: 40) refers to a report by Jakobsen (1896: 120-121) on a battle
between Wonreli and Oirata. This one was reported to have taken place in 1887.
23 Sahusilawane probably used written material for her account. We suppose that
Tilwaru and Saurai are corruptions or poorly transcribed versions of Tilwaku (L. Wedilen et
al. 2004: 71) or Teluaku and Sa’urai that have been identified as names from the Ira clan group
(De Josselin de Jong 1937: 59-60, 64).
of Dahoklory et al. (2010) that the battle was actually a strategy to secure the mandate of Wonreli. The Woirata story also provides the name of an important narrative artifact, the Sacred War Sword (Woirata: Āl Wo’or Tei) that is kept by descendants of the warlords from the families Katipana and Rupilu in Mesyapi. There is an addition to the Woirata text in Box 4 by the Irara clan group (L. Wedilen et al. 2004: 71-72) quoted below in Box 5. The inner box contains a song and has the same display as Box 2: the left side contains the original text, the central text is a Toolbox inspired translation and the right side text is the translation of the authors.
‘The murder of the Portuguese on Walu beach by Olkasa and Laudiun became known by the Portuguese outside that region. … After the Portuguese attack
on Kisar Island a poem was composed that confirmed that Olkasa and Laudiun
attacked the Portuguese at Walu Beach and snatched the Puna keris of the Portuguese.The poem sounds (like this):
”Keris Puna Maha Naryei Kekeki Daisuli Loi Lor.”
”The Golden Keris Puna Stolen Almost sets Kisar Adrift.”
“Because of the Golden Keris Puna Kisar Almost Sank.”
… Once upon a time there was a war between Tilwaku and Saurai, the cousins of Olkasa and Laudiun and the Wonreli people (Meher people). This war is called the War for the Restoration of Self-Respect, alternatively called the War of Resmukata Maukailele.24 This war claimed a lot of victims at the side of the Wonreli people. During the conciliation process between the Wonreli people and the Woirata people that was sponsored by the Irara (Ira) family, a claim came up from the Wonreli people to compensate their very many losses. The Irara (Ira) family member who sponsored the conciliation process and complied with the claim was Alada, who descended from Olkasa and Laudiun. He handed over treasures in the form of gold and royal jewelry to which the Puna keris was added. The gold in the end came into the hands of the house of Halono, because the peace negotiations were done through the Manumere family that appeared to be the main assistant of the house of Halono.’
24
In other words, the Woirata addition in Box 5 challenges the Meher statement in Box 4 that it were Meher people who were involved in the murder and ransacking at Walu beach in East Timor. Rather, it were people from the Woirata-speaking Ira clan group who committed that. Interestingly, the song that supports this interpretation is in the Kisarese variant of the “Sung
Language”, which is evidenced by the typical Meher words kekeki ‘almost’
and Daisuli, which is the parallel lexical name for Kisar Island.
This confirms Sweeney’s (1987) thesis that a narrative is a combination of “narrative chunks“ or fixed storylines that can be combined differently in
each narration. Figure 2 displays the assessments from the Woirata and Meher perspectives of the narrative of the Golden Keris.
24 More precise Resi Mumukata Ma’u Kailese (‘Vanquish Dirt Come Throw’) ‘The War to
Cast off Foul’.
Both Woirata and Meher link the origin of the golden keris to the same event on Walu Beach in Timor-Leste. Both sides acknowledge that in the end this
specific event caused the Portuguese punitive expedition on Kisar and the
installation of the clan of Hihileli as the king of Kisar by the Dutch. From the Woirata point of view, the Walu Beach event was a raid executed by two Woirata men, Olkasa and Laudiun, from the Ira clan group (see Box 5). This is supported by the distich in Sung Language. Interestingly, Christiaan (2011) in a way supports this view, but explains that Meher society through the Chalk Line Poem prefers to interpret the Walu Beach event rather as
an accidental find by two other men Perulu and Painulu from the
(Meher-speaking) Nakar Dauclan. Both sides also acknowledge the Battle of Porok.
Only the Woirata specify that the golden keris appears as one of the treasures
paid by the Woirata people as a war compensation to the clan of Halonoin
Lekloor, the twin clan of Hihileli in Wonreli. The Meher poem in Box 5 depicts the battle rather as a strategy to strengthen the position of the Halono clan in local island politics. Since the required clues – names, songs or poems and narrative artifacts – surface in the topology of either story, both sides will therefore principally accept each other’s variant. Each party, of course, will highlight its own perspective, implying the demotion of the other party's interpretation where possible.
The arrival of the Dutch
The Dutch had a huge impact on both the literate and narrative history of Kisar Island. The oldest record of an oral narrative on the arrival of the Dutch is by De Josselin de Jong (1937) at the end of the Woirata myth he compiled.
In the quotation below // connects two members of a lexical pair.
Figure 2. Poetry as clues for narrative truth.
WOIRA
T
A
PERSPECTIVE
827. Kupnin25 tono Na // Ha26 nou // nakun nanederemu le ma’u amuli // ayala le ma’u mata lolonana // solot lolonana aun nahalse // nakane he, ha Uaraha // Lauara nahalse // nakane.
827. ‘Concerning the Company then, the captain remembered its agreement //
a promise and came to make it permanent
// everlasting and did not anchor // moor in the right harbor // in the right bay, but anchored // moored in Uahara // Lauara. 828. Ka tono houte le mara kapal yamoi.
829. Na // Ha Horsaire o’o wayan Mutasair kasaru to kapal yamoi. 830. Horsair sohon nahama’I, wayan Mutasair ta sohon naware le lukun me pan-panne.
828. Then the oldest brother descended and climbed on board. 829. The captain ordered Horsair and his brother-in-law Mutasair to climb on board. 830. Horsair was ignorant about the language, but (his) brother-in-law Mutasair did know the language and mediated.
831. No’o. 832. Ka punuwa’in // punmodasen me luku, tono a lodon // sair me Horsair ina, sorot umayauele me ina, tetu emete le le mara …
831. The younger sibling. 832.The older sibling27 spoke by means of all his belongings // all his property, so they gave Horsair a rattan cane // a flag, gave (him) a book and then he (= Horsair, AVE&N) descended (from the boat) and went home. …
835. Tetu nohe uma ara ratu e’en apu kapal yamoi le Mutasair o’opa’a uste, tetu tian karhou-uru me jai-taipulu pain aun me ina, tetu houte. 836. Una’a war halse // hakane pe’e Na //Ha kira-kira mata mahune. 837. Tetu soroke le mara mata // solot anaye, tono Nama Luli // Nama Here nahalse // hakane.
835. Then, early next day when it became light both men climbed on board and asked Mutasair’s share and they gave him a rattan cane with a knob made of buffalo horn, and then they descended. 836. The captain thought that the anchoring // mooring spot was a bad harbor. 837. So they left and looked for a harbor // a bay and then they anchored
// moored in Nama Luli // Nama Here (= Nama Beach, AVE&N).‘
252627
The basic message that the Dutch landed first at the South coast of Kisar Island
is generally acknowledged in both Kisarese oral tradition and Dutch written historiography. Box 6 compares three written accounts on this event from a Woirata, a Dutch and a Meher source.
25 The term kupnin in De Josselin de Jong’s (1937) text is a Woirata corruption of the local
Malay kompeni, which refers to the United East Indian Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Company, VOC).
26 The Woirata lexical pair Na //Ha (‘Mother // Father’) refers to a leader, which in this
context is the captain.
27 Lines 831 and 832 are a repair construction in which the inadvertently introduced
Woirata account Dutch account Meher account ‘… in 1665 a Dutch trade
ship … anchored at Uahara // Lauara, close to Kiahar Beach. …
‘It is probably just a tale that has been made up later in which the Dutch had landed
first at the South coast in the
small cove near Oirata. à
‘In 1664 a Dutch ship emerged at the Kiasar –Nama Beach. à
When on this beach they met with family of the land owners, that is: Horsair (and) Mutasair, Jan Blime28 used
sign language and pointed at the soil with his cane, meaning that he wanted to ask for the name of this island, but the family of the land owners thought he asked for the name of the beach, so Horsair (and) Mutasair said “Kiahar” and as he listened Jan Blime understood “Kisar”. Since then the name Kisar is used to mention the island of Yotowawa // Daisuli. … At Kiasar Beach29 there is
also an inscription with old writing that was chiseled by the Dutch when they arrived in 1665.’ (O. Wedilen 2014.)
à We could ascertain that the stone with inscription that the Dutch supposedly placed there was just a rock in the coral conglomerate became for always the area for Dutch VOC ships to anchor. The Dutch then piled
flat stones into a construction
that looks like a pyramid of which they say its goal was to enable ships at sea to come and anchor near the beach. …’ (Sahusilawane 2008: 38.) 2829
The first striking feature of the Woirata text is the mentioning of the year 1665.
The Meher text rather mentions 1664, whereas Rodenwaldt (1928: 18-19) does
28 In all consulted texts the captain of the ship is referred to as Jan Blime. This is a
typographic error in Rodenwaldt (1928: 19) for Jan Blinne. There appears to be no Dutch family name Blime.
29 Kiasar is the Meher name for Kiahar Beach.
not mention any year. Rather he interprets the Woirata story as a made-up
tale, probably after the Dutch and the chief of Wo’orili signed their first treaty
in 1665.
The Dutch inscription at the east side cliff at Kiasar Beach is rather dismissed by Rodenwaldt as an accidental feature. Whereas De Josselin de
Jong’s Woirata text above specifically explains that the Dutch vessel arrived first on Kiasar Beach and then sailed on to Nama Beach, the Meher source of
Sahusilawane (2008) combines both names into one. As such it suggests in a way that Kiasar and Nama are - lexically paired? - names for the same beach at the West Coast (in Meher-speaking territory). The Woirata narrative artifact of the Dutch inscription is overridden altogether by another narrative artifact, the pyramid near Nama Beach (on Cape Madalahar), which the Dutch built in order to assist the VOC ships to anchor at Nama Beach. The Malukan Tourist
Service (2015),30 however, points out that this construction was built in 1774
by a German professor V. Fechler.
The Woirata text in Box 8 attempts to complete its narrative topology by providing the names of the protagonists, Jan Blime, the captain of the Dutch vessel and Horsair and Mutasair, two Woirata men with whom the Dutch captain talked at Kiasar Beach. Although quoted in Box 6 above, he also mentions the name of the Dutch vessel Loenen. The sheer mentioning of the names of the captain and the ship proves that O. Wedilen (2014) had access to Rodenwaldt (1928) who erroneously copied this name as Jan Blime
instead of Jan Blinne. 31 Elsewhere the author acknowledges that he received
this information from the “Dutch”32 anthropologist Dieter Bartels when he
visited Oirata on 9 July 2004.
It is possible that O. Wedilen quoted the names of Horsair and Mutasair from De Josselin de Jong (1937) whose text is now available in Oirata. However, as can be seen above, this text does not mention the name of the Dutch captain anywhere. Alternatively he may have heard these names from storytellers from the Hano’o clan group to whom the De Josselin de Jong’s text belongs, which O. Wedilen as a local inhabitant of West Oirata should have easy access to. We hypothesize that what happened is that O. Wedilen (2011) combined both the Dutch account that he received through Dieter Bartels and the local Woirata account into a new story. Since Rodenwaldt (1928) places Jan Blime
in 1665, O. Wedilen (2014) also locates the first arrival of the Dutch in 1665,
whereas the Meher account sets the arrival in 1664.
Although not mentioned in the quoted text in Box 6, O. Wedilen (2014) does mention the gifts of the Dutch captain to Horsair and Mutasair. The book in De Josselin de Jong’s (1937) text, however, appears to be a Bible according to O. Wedilen (2014). Two other Woirata authors, Haisoo and Ratusehaka (2015),
30 In full: Dinas Parawisata dan Ekonomi Kreatif Provinsi Maluku ‘The Tourist and
Creative Economy Service of Maluku Province’.
31 See footnote 28.
32 In fact, Dieter Bartels is a German producer of ethnographic films who is stationed
report that local oral tradition has it that there were actually two flags and
that the domains Manheri (= East Oirata) and Mauhara (= West Oirata) each
hid a rattan cane and a flag, whereas the Bible was placed in a copper casket
and then buried in Manheri. According to O. Wedilen (2014), an archeological team that excavated the book revealed that it was a Bible written in Dutch and donated by Jan Blime.
The Dutch presence on Kisar Island in the seventeenth century AD is closely connected to the royal Bakker family in Wonreli and as such linked to Meher people rather than to the Woirata population. Box 7 displays two Meher accounts, a Woirata account and a Dutch account.
3334
Woirata account Meher account 1 Meher account 2 Dutch account ‘Before the match
33 Since we have never heard the name Reitaubun before, we hypothesize that it is
typographical error for the Keiese name Retraubun.
But the jumps of war chief Lakadoli did not sound at all, except for the sound of trampling.
War chief Lakadoli acknowledged he lost the match. Therefore all leaders of
Nomaha, the war chief Lakadoli and all Nomaha people had to leave Nunkoli. Then they moved and stayed on Lekerau mountain north of the Yoto Yaun mountain area.’ (L. Wedilen et al. 2004: 59-62.)
All four accounts narrate the fall of the Nomaha domain in Kisarese narrative history. No account is known to us that elaborates on the Nomaha perspective.
Dahoklory et al. (2010: 2) suggest that both the communities of Yoto and Rau35
in fact were descendants of the extended family that once dwelled on Yoto Mountain and that it was the need to protect the good name of two children from Yoto that lead to an everlasting feud between both domains.
The Dutch account in Riedel (1886) retells the event of the blood brotherhood between the chiefs of the domains of Wo’orili and Abusur and the equalization of their social classes. The mentioning of Utanmere, the name of the then chief of Wo’orili and an ancestor of the present king of Kisar Island,
suggests that the Dutch account originates from the leading Hihileliclan in the
Wonreli domain. The story’s protagonist, however, is Kikilailai, the founding ancestor of the Romdawa clan.
The Meher 2 account in Parera (1994) is a concise reproduction of an oral account by Mr. W. Frans in the 1970-ies. He was a descendant of one
of the protagonists in the story, Tilukai, and as such affiliated to the leading
Romdawaclan in the domain of Abusur. The different names in both accounts
may suggest from a Western point of view that either both stories refer to different evens – since the protagonists have different names – or that one of the stories is historically incorrect. From a local point of view both are
35 Lek Yoto and Lek Rau in their terminology.
considered equally correct. The fact that the storyteller of the Meher account
2 is a descendant of one of the protagonists in this specific story and a member
of the clan to which the main character belongs gave him the right to mention
the correct name in this specific “narrative chunk“: Sai Mermere. The source
of the Dutch account, however, who was not a member of the clan, could only indirectly refer to the main character by using the name of the clan’s ancestor: Kikilailai.36
The Meher 1 account does not mention any names, because its storyteller, Mr. H.N. Christiaan, is a member of the Mauko’o clan in the Kiou domain that is an ally of the Hihileli clan. Rather he hints at the protagonist by mentioning the names of the clans from which the latter came forth: Mauradi in the Lekloor domain and Romdawa in the Abusur domain.
From a narratological point of view, the event discussed in the Woirata account precedes the events in the other three accounts. It tells how the (Meher-speaking) Nomaha people had to leave their initial domain Nunkoli after having lost a contest with the (Woirata-speaking) Irara clan group and moved into the territory of the Yoto domain, the home domain of the Hihileli clan. In other words: the Nomaha people, who were seen as unwanted immigrants by the rulers of the original Oirata domain, now became unintentionally intruders in the Hihileli realm and eventually a danger to the power stability in the Yoto domain. This led to the traditional enmity between the successor of Yoto, Wonreli, and Nomaha and foreshadowed the latter’s support to the Portuguese raiders discussed in Box 6 above. The Woirata account is a typical outsider rendition: it mentions the antagonist, Lakadoli, but does not relate to any clan, nor does it provide the names of the ancestors and leaders of the Nomaha people.
Riedel (1886: 402) points at the fact that Kisar Island was located in between
the power zones of Portugal and the VOC. He quotes an unspecified Dutch
source that states that in fact it was the raid on the islands of Kisar and Romang by the naval forces of the Sultan of Tidore in 1643 that was the incentive for the local chiefs “to enter into a contract signed in 1665 with the Honorable Company that had allowed them for years to perform generous acts”. Both Rodenwaldt and Riedel point out that these “generous acts” referred to the traditional slave and spice trade of Kisar islanders with the surrounding islands. This contract,
then, became a narrative artifact for the Pakarlineage within the Hihileliclan
that evidences its installment as kings of Kisar Island by the VOC.
Box 6 showed the competition between both ethnolinguistic groups on the
first contact with the Dutch. In fact within the Meher-speaking community
there is also disagreement on how the bond between the VOC administration and the Yoto domain began. Box 8 compares two Meher accounts of two allied domains, Wonreli and Abusur.
36 On the next page, Parera (1994: 64) quotes another source, Mr. Salmun Woulele who
Wonreli account Abusur account
‘About the arrival of the Dutch to the Southwestern islands, Maluku, a notable in Kisarese society, S.D. Mozes elaborates from different types of information that he collected. It is said that before the Dutch came to Kisar a Kisarese ancestor, Perlakuloho, took his younger sibling to Belagar on Pantar, Alor. However, during the trip back to Kisar Island, precisely between the islands of Kisar and Wetar, Perlakuloho met with a boat with apparently a Dutch man on board named Jan de Klein. It had trouble to continue its journey because of water shortage. So, Perlakuloho helped the Dutch man and invited him to Kisar, hoping that the Dutch in the ship would help them in the event there would be an attack by the Portuguese. … à
‘Parallel to that event (the Portuguese raid, AvE&N), Pakar, Norimarna and Poroe brought their mother who was called Lokomau to an area that they considered safe: Rekilapa and then they went to Leti island. …
Norimarna and Poroe stayed on Leti, but
Pakar sailed to Damar Island to find help
from the Dutch Company. On Damar he met all chiefs or nobles …
All nobles on Damar Island agreed to help Pakar and they summoned Terry Dawarkay to sail along with Pakar to Bandaneira Island in order to meet the Dutch Company …
For its part, the Dutch Company conceded
in Pakar’s request and sent its war fleet
under the command of Mister Jan de Leeuw along together with Pakar. … After having done a survey to some places, the place to settle for the VOC appeared to be at Wooluha.37 A friendship
à The Dutch captain Jan de Klein accepted the invitation. In the following development the Dutch flag flew on Kisar island, which made the Portuguese want to attack Kisar Island. à
37
37 We have not been able to find this location and suspect the name is misread
treaty was made between the VOC and the people on Kisar Island. Pakar represented the Kisarese society while Jan de Leeuw acted in the name of the East India Company VOC. As a symbol of the friendship treaty between both peoples they made a testimony called Yosi or Au kereh38 by planting a banyan that was given the name Beringin Yambelein.39 …
During the arrival of the Dutch …, Pakar, who was helped by Marou (an ally of Pakar) from the clan house of Romdawa in Abusur, urged the Kisarese to open up the area in the South and founded a new settlement … that was given the name
Wo’orili … In the traditional speech … it says:
The domain of Dimata // Dalusama The domain of Wo’orili // the village of Sokolai
The island’s north side // the island’s south side
assemble Kisar ‘s // gather Kisar’s Kisar’s royalty here // its nobility here its peasants here // its artisans here40 Since then on July 11th, 1665 the administrative center Wo’orili // Sokolai was born that generally is called Wonreli.’ (Sahusilawane 2008: 40-41.)
à Finally, the passengers on that ship stayed on Kisar Island (Mestizos) and in fact Jan de Klein married a Kisarese
woman. The Dutch built first Delftshaven
Town in Kotalama41 and Vollenhoven Town on Nama Beach. This is evidenced by the remains of two forts in these two towns.’ (Joesef 2012.)
3839
4041
Sahusilawane (2008: 43) informs that her information is taken from the Royal
family’s written historiography called Buku Tembaga ‘the Copper Book’ by the
fifth king of Kisar Island, Hairmere Philippus Bakker (1769-1782). Joesef’s
(2012) account is based on information from Mr. S.D. Mozes who according to our information originates from Abusur. Both accounts mention a different name for the Dutch captain. The Abusur account suggests that either Joesef (2012) or S.D. Mozes had access to Rodenwaldt (1928: 19-20) who reproduced
38 Meher: ‘hard wood‘ = ‘mark‘.
39 Elsewhere Sahusilawane (2008:37) explains that Yambelein is a Kisarese corruption of
Jan de Leeuw. Beringin Yambelein therefore means ‘Jan de Leeuw’s banyan’.
40 Original text Lines: Leke Dimata // Dalusama, Leke Wo’orili // Ruhun Sokolai, Noho
Wali Ra’i // Noho Wali Kranna, Rodi Kuti Yotowawa // Rodi Kawu Yotowawa, Yotowawa maru aka eni-eni // po’or keneu eni-eni, weke au eni-eni // dani supa eni-eni.
41 Local Malay for ‘the old city’.
the name of the Dutch captain as either Jan Blime42 or Klein. The Wonreli
account reproduces his name rather as Jan de Leeuw.43 Interestingly, the
Abusur account is partly confirmed in Riedel’s (1886: 402) report that was
published 126 years before Joesef’s report:
The head of Wo’orili, Loimuluwere, went to Alor or Ombaai to seek help (against the Portuguese, AVE&N), and met a Dutch vessel near Pulau Kambing44 that had a certain Jan Beleon on board to whom he married his daughter Sonopau.45 In 1665 after he signed a contract with the Dutch he united his people on Kaisama
Mountain and built the fortification or Barricade Dalusama, Delftshaven. (Riedel
1886: 402)
However, the Dutch account reports it was Loimuluwere who met the Dutch captain at sea, whereas the Abusur account mentions another name: Perlakuloho. Where the Abusur account refers to the Dutch captain as Jan de Klein, reminiscent to Rodenwaldt’s (1928: 19-20) suggestion of “Jan Blime (Klein?)”, Riedel (1886) mentions Jan Beleon, whereas the Wonreli account insists it was Jan de Leeuw. A quick search at the Internet reveals that Beleon is
a Greek rather than a Dutch name. The captain’s first name, Jan, can definitely
be recognized as Dutch. This suggests that Riedel copied this name erroneously from a written source – of which we suspect it was the “Copper Book” - and that it actually should have been Jan De Leeuw in which the initial <D> was
interpreted as <B> and the final part <eeuw> as <eon>.
Notwithstanding the fact that the same Dutch captain seems to occur in both the Wonreli and Dutch accounts, its accidental meeting at sea with a Kisarese sailor appears to be absent in the Wonreli account. The latter account rather reports that Jan de Leeuw was sent to Kisar Island by the VOC administration on Bandaneira Island. Joesef’s (2012) formulation at the bottom
of Box 8 can give the suggestion that Jan de Klein first settled on Kisar Island
and then married with a local woman. The Dutch account, however, explicitly links the meeting at sea event to the marriage event and gives the name of the woman: Sonopau. About her there is a Chalk Line Poem, reproduced below in Box 9.
Original song text Toolbox inspired translation
Performer’s translation
Marou wakanala nisa wor-woro
Opa Sonopau nodi muhiala
‘Marou combined silver jewelry
Lady Sonopau brought shiny beads‘46
‘Marou married his sister to a Dutch,
Sonopau’s bond is good with them’
46
42 See footnote 28.
43 Sahusilawane (2008) writes this name as Jan de Leuw or Yan de Leuw. 44 The former Malay name for Ataúru Island.
45 Riedel (1886: 402) transcribes this name erroneously as Sonopan. 46 The term muhiala in Meher Sung Language refers to mutisalah beads.
According to its performer this song describes Sonopau as a sister of Marou, the
chief of the Abusur domain who was a contemporary of the first king of Kisar. At the end of his report Yotowawa Daisuli (2013) explains that the first king
of Kisar – Pakar – went undercover during his childhood due to an expected revolt by nobles against his candidacy for the chieftaincy. Loimuluwere was a son of Marou who joined Pakar as a playmate in the latter’s secret hideaway in Pupoulomo.
Otherwise formulated, the source for the Dutch accounts in boxes 7 and 8 probably was either someone from the Abusur domain or even a member of the Romdawa clan who edited the narrative chunks of the Fall of Nomaha and the Arrival of the Dutch in such a way that they became narratives of
Abusur rather than of Wonreli.47 This is further elaborated and analysed in
the next section.
Annexation of narrative history: the appropriation of
chronotopes
The two sections above described the cultural tensions between both ethnolinguistic groups on Kisar Island. Each group acknowledges one clan
that descended from the first ancestor living on Kisar Island, from which fact
it derives its leading position in society as owner of the land. In the Woirata-speaking community the owner of the land is represented by the clan house of Sorulewen in the Hano’o clan group in East Oirata. In the Meher-speaking community the owner of the land is represented by the clan house of Hihileli in the Wonreli domain.
Soewarsono (2013a: 15) explains that both Woirata-speaking domains are
traditionally managed by a council of five members that is metaphorically described as a boat in which each member has his specific task. The
land-owning Sorulewen clan from the Hano’o clan group occupies one of the master chairs, the other one being occupied by the Ho’oren clan from the Asatupu clan group. The helmsman chair is taken by the So’o clan that also belongs to the Hano’o clan group. The chair for the one who holds the hand bailer is also assigned to the Ho’oren clan from the Asatupu clan group, whereas
the final chair for the pilot is taken by the Resiara clan from the A’udoro clan
group. The Woirata system may seem to deviate from the one described for the Wonreli domain. In fact the latter’s traditional management system appears to be comparable. Yotowawa Daisuli (2013) describes that initially the Yoto domain that preceded the present-day Wonreli domain was managed by a council of nine clans. It was presided by the house of Romili of the Hihileli clan. Whereas the Woirata council uses the boat metaphor as known in several other Southwest Malukan societies (De Jonge and Van Dijk 1995: 32-47), the
Yoto council rather uses the metaphor of a conference room: the Nakar Wawan
‘Upper House’. Beside the mentioned nine clans, Yotowawa Daisuli also
47 This finding confirms the suggestion made in footnote 3 that a Karanna dialect speaker
